It’s Saturday evening, and my wife, Jess, and I set out for the 7ate9 community meal at Bloor Central Corps in Toronto. On the subway, we run into Joe, who’s also headed there, and he shares the inconveniences and delays he’s faced on the way. Exiting Ossington Station at Delaware Avenue, we cross paths with other familiar faces: Warren, panhandling at a crossroads, who we invite to the meal; and Charlie and Jenny, honking at us from their truck.

As we approach the corps at 789 Dovercourt Road, the guys who are smoking outside smile at us as we walk in. Inside the church basement, our senses are overwhelmed by the aroma of Tuscan stew and the cacophony of conversations reverberating off the walls. Catherine Groulx, food co-ordinator at the corps, and her team, have prepared a beautiful three-course meal, with cream of mushroom soup, Tuscan ham and bean stew with rice and veggies, and watermelon slices for dessert.

Amid the bustling scene, Major Doug Hammond, our corps officer, gives us a hearty high five, while Paul Leger, a longtime volunteer and member of the corps, rushes from the kitchen to share his latest joke. Seated at a table with our new companions, Rick, Doug M. and Terry, we are swiftly attended by eager volunteers bearing trays of food and drinks. Our evening has just begun, and it is time for fellowship.

This experience is reminiscent of the scene Jesus paints in Luke 14, in which a man holds a great banquet. When the invited guests make excuses not to come, he tells his servant to “go out quickly intothe streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Luke 14:21). This is our guest list at Bloor Central. We don’t limit who joins us for a meal and we don’t market it exclusively to those who are in dire need. The meal is for the whole community, a place for gathering—a social, as much as a nutritious, endeavour.

It would be easy for a first-time observer and participant to miss what’s really happening at this meal, and instead focus on the quality of the food and service—which are top tier. But to get a true understanding of the Bloor Central community meal you must keep coming back to get to know people. Without the relational aspect, the meal becomes a restaurant or a feeding program, a space for mere consumption rather than fellowship. But the community meal is so much more than that: it is our Christ-driven response to the city’s loneliness epidemic.

Something about being together around a table enables enriching conversations in a way that just having coffee after a Sunday meeting doesn’t. It’s impossible to look cool while slurping soup, so we let our guard down, which, in turn, creates space for connections to be made. The diversity of race, age, economic status, profession and every other possible difference creates an environment in which to listen and learn from all perspectives, and a place to sit with grief, joy and searching. Though I am not overly extroverted, since I have started attending the 7ate9 community meal, it has become hard to leave the room without stopping and talking to two handfuls of people.

There’s a painting that hangs on the wall of the corps, created by a friend of the congregation, Geoff Ryan. Called The Feast, each character represents someone he has met and engaged with at our gathering. Though the style borders on the grotesque, it is symbolic of the great banquet. Christ has invited us not only to feed the hungry but to gather in faith and eat together.

In the top left corner of the painting, you might notice one man who is not at the table, who is not looking to God but facing the opposite direction. He represents those who choose to look away from the great feast and community to which God has invited them.

The 7ate9 community meal may not be as prim and proper as fine dining, but it is the kingdom coming together to ignite God’s light in the city. Let’s set a big table and eat!

Jahred Warkentin is a music education specialist on the music and arts ministries team and attends Bloor Central Corps in Toronto.